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Windows 8

Word is that the public beta of Windows 8 is apparently slated to be released in late February of 2012, according to sources close to Microsoft. The timing of the public beta launch has been much talked about in tech circles; it’s expected that Windows 8 will be officially released in 2012, but the actual expected date for the completion and shipment of the upcoming Microsoft operating system remains, at the moment, unrevealed. Though, with the knowledge of the public beta release’s time frame, we’ll have a better idea of the overall time frame of the new Windows operating system.

The Next Web was unable to confirm from Microsoft precisely what will be in the public beta of Windows 8, the feature set not yet released nor specified. But it will most likely be decided by the engineers working on the project deciding which parts are release-ready. So, no information has been imparted yet on the email function currently missing from the developer preview of Windows 8, and if it will be in the beta in late February.

Though February is a bit a later than some of us were hoping for a pubic beta release, Windows 8 seems to be making continuing progress, and assuming that Microsoft hits this milestone, the official version of Windows 8 should be on track for its expected third quarter launch next year. Have any SlashGear readers downloaded or used the Windows 8 developer preview yet? What are your thoughts? Feel free to leave them in the comment section below.

SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 has a secret weapon no one’s talked very much about. It’s actually pretty amazing, in that small sort of way that doesn’t change much, but still manages to completely alter how you use something. In fact, it might just make SkyDrive the best cloud service around. If you install Dropbox, SkyDrive, or even Google Drive on your desktop today, you’re going to sync the whole of your folder to your drive, at once, and keep all the files there whenever they’re synced. If you don’t have enough space, tough. Delete something you don’t have synced to the cloud, or just stop syncing. SkyDrive has a different solution. Microsoft calls this its “secret sauce”. Basically, SkyDrive makes files and folders you store in the cloud behave as though they’re stored there anyway, without taking up space on your computer. You can browse, inspect, and even preview them, even though the whole file isn’t taking up space on your drive.